Most show-goers left town on Sunday, with a bunch staying to drive out to Ski Shores caf on the river for lunch before heading home, but we elected to stay another night, enjoy Austin as it usually is without the car show crowds, and head home Monday. With an ever-dropping needle on the voltmeter, a quick stop at an auto parts store netted a new alternator, and the truck behaved perfectly all the way home. Well, perfectly that is if you ignore the fact it always runs hot, and the temperature in Arizona and California was nudging 105 degrees as we trekked across the desert. The roof held the heat in, and it wasn't until we hit on the idea of emptying three bags of ice on the floor that we managed to cool down. Bizarre, as only a few hours before we'd been wearing virtually all the clothes we'd brought with us in an effort to stay warm before sunrise.
The almost-3000 mile round trip took about 21 hours each way, ignoring our brief motel stops and fixin' the truck, which really didn't allow for much more than blasting along interstates. Maybe next year we'll spend three or four days traveling each way and enjoy some two lane roads. That'll be a neat road trip. And we have almost a year to figure how to pitch it to the boss!
Makin' our way across the...
Makin' our way across the California desert at sunset, followed by toy haulers heading for the Glamis sand dunes.
Glad I packed the scissor...
Glad I packed the scissor jack from my F-150 daily driver, I crawled underneath to figure out why the steering had gone sloppy after a couple hours of sleep and a warm shower.
Bagged and blown. Zack Hardy's...
Bagged and blown. Zack Hardy's '61 Ford was running hoodless, and we would too if we wanted to show off the late-model Ford Cobra OHC motor. A bagged IFS gets the front end down.
After three hours crawling...
After three hours crawling around autoparts stores in two towns, we finally struck gold at Autozone in Deming, New Mexico, who had the Caprice center steering link and idler arm in stock.
It's hard to top a '59 El...
It's hard to top a '59 El Camino in the cool stakes, but slam it and fill the bed with a neat bike and you'll have succeded.
Bruce's Rod Shop has one of...
Bruce's Rod Shop has one of the coolest shop trucks I've seen, and I'll bet the four-carbed small-block surprises a few people as its outward appearance is, er, "antique."
Everything looks better lowered,...
Everything looks better lowered, as proved by this bagged '59 Apache.